EncryptionDHS questioned over pressure it put on a library to disable Tor node
Back in September, Kilton Public Library in Lebanon, New Hampshire briefly disabled its Tor relay after local police, following a tip from agents with Homeland Security’s investigations branch that the network may be used by criminals or terrorists. A Congresswoman from California wants to know why DHS officials pressured the New Hampshire library to take down the relay node, and whether DHS has leaned on other organizations to do so.
Back in September, Kilton Public Library in Lebanon, New Hampshire briefly disabled its Tor relay after local police, following a tip from agents with Homeland Security’s investigations branch that the network may be used by criminals or terrorists.
Motherboard reports that relay nodes act as the middle points of the Tor secure network, the layers of encryption of which allow political activists, journalists, human rights advocates, and snooping-wary citizens – but also criminals and terrorists — to access the Internet anonymously. The more nodes there, the faster the network and the access to it.
After learning of the Tor relay disabling, the Lebanon library board unanimously voted to restore it and announced plans to convert it into a Tor exit node, a gateways which allows Tor users anonymously connect to Internet sites and services. As Motherboard reported, more than a dozen other libraries around the United States announced they would run Tor nodes of their own to show their support for Kilton Library and for the good causes Tor serves.
Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-California) has now written a letter to DHS secretary Jeh Johnson, demanding to know why DHS was involved in asking a New Hampshire library to disable its Tor relay.
“While the Kilton Public Library’s board ultimately voted to restore their Tor relay, I am no less disturbed by the possibility that DHS employers are pressuring or persuading public and private entities to discontinue or degrade services that protect the privacy and anonymity of U.S. citizens,” Lofgren wrote in her letter.
She raises several questions about the incident, including whether the intervention was the result of official DHS policy or a agent, and whether the agency has made similar requests of other organizations to stop providing privacy services such a Tor.
Lofgren also requested “copies of any DHS policy, guidance, or memo that discusses either deterring or supporting the use of privacy protection services by public entities, private entities, or individuals.”
Motherboard notes that DHS is not the only U.S. agency discouraging the use of privacy tools. Last week, FBI director James Comey reiterated his call on lawmakers to require technology companies t like Apple and WhatsApp, which offer end-to-end encryption, to change their business model so that they would be able to hand over keys to encrypted customer communications when a court orders them to do so.
